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Tim BontempsESPN
After Giannis Antetokounmpo hit a recovery jump on the track to crown a personal 7-0 streak and give his Milwaukee Bucks what turned out to be an insurmountable advantage in the final 109-105 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night , he celebrated by sitting on the court inside Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center and looking directly at the camera with a smile on his face.
That smile remained as he returned to the huddle and while the few fans who were allowed to enter the building filled Antetokounmpo with boos. But with a victory in the hand after a dominant performance – 32 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in 43 minutes – the smile was still on Anteokounmpo’s face after the game when he was asked why he chose to celebrate that way.
“Is there something wrong with having fun?” Antetokoumnpo said. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with having fun. I just like to have fun. In the first half, I was not having fun. I kind of, you know, talked to myself at the break and said, ‘No matter how bad the game is, you can’t forget what you have to do, which is to have fun. ‘
“Obviously, there are times when I exaggerate, but I don’t want to take anything away. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to sit down.’ I was having fun. I was talking to my teammates – I was talking to them. I was just trying to be in the moment. But I was just having fun. “
It was not so much fun for the Sixers, who held the Bucks in 12 of 45 pitches in the first half overall, including 1 of 17 in the 3-point range, and led by up to 19 points before blowing late. Philadelphia fell from first place in the East thanks to the victory of the Brooklyn Nets in Indiana on Wednesday night.
Sixers centerman Dwight Howard in particular disagreed with the Antetokounmpo celebration.
“I wanted to go and Stone Cold Stunner him, but I already had a technology,” said Howard, referring to a move popularized by WWE fighter Stone Cold Steve Austin. “It’s basketball. He wanted to have fun, but we will see these guys again. Today we allowed them to get back in the game. We did it. We can’t control it.
“But he had a hell of a game. He made some difficult moves at the end of the game, reigning as an MVP, and he made a great game. I’m not one to talk nonsense or say something negative, but we’ll see again and the result will be different.”
A big presence was missing in this game: Sixers star Joel Embiid, who sat on the side with moccasins and a sweatshirt and remains out with a bruise on his left knee suffered from a fall last Friday in a victory over the Wizards. But the energy and intensity on both sides seemed reminiscent of a playoff game – and it was a reminder of what could be in store in June, when these teams would be scheduled to face each other in the semifinals of the Eastern Conference.
Still, the Bucks almost threw the game away, exploding a seven-point lead in the final minute of regulation, thanks to Sixers guard Furkan Korkmaz, who hit a 3-point basket with 0.4 seconds to tie the score in 93 That was when Antetokounmpo saved Milwaukee in overtime.
Ultimately, Milwaukee took away the kind of hard physical road game that it will need to win this spring if it wants to stand out and reach the NBA finals for the first time since the 1970s.
“We knew we were playing badly on the offensive side, missing shots,” said Bucks striker Khris Middleton. “But at the same time, we were all together, we were still positive and we knew there was a lot of game ahead of us and we would have a chance, as long as we kept playing defense and continued to play the right way at the other end.
“At some point the game was going to change and we were going to run, and luckily it happened.”
Yes, largely because of Antetokounmpo’s heroism. After Howard took a long jump to tie the score in 98 with 3:08 to overtime, Antetokounmpo scored in three consecutive possessions – a hard push to the left for a tray; a 3-point pull-up; and hesitation, turnaround jump on the track – to make it 105-98 with 1:12 left, almost guaranteeing that the Bucks would win.
“When the game starts, you try to get into your rhythm, but you’re not on the right track. … It’s just difficult to get into the rhythm,” said Antetokounmpo, who scored 28 of his 32 points in the second half and overtime. “And the way I try to get into the rhythm is to involve everyone. I try to move the ball a little bit, move my legs, move my body a little bit. But going into the second half, I wanted to be a little more aggressive, but I knew that I couldn’t get out of the gate and be aggressive. I had to build slowly for that.
“But going further, I was just trying to be aggressive … My teammates need me to keep making the right move and they need me to stay aggressive, so that’s what I tried to do.”
The jokes continued on Antetokounmpo’s Zoom call, too, when he ordered a cheesesteak – making sure he got one with Cheese Whiz in it – and he was asked where he had the idea to sit on the court.
“Guys, I didn’t see that,” he said. “That was what I wanted to do at the time, and that’s what I did. I didn’t see it. But, like I said, I was just trying to have fun. Trying to enjoy the moment.”
It turns out that Antetokounmpo was not the only one to have never seen this before.
“I was also shocked when I saw him do that,” said Middleton with a laugh. “But I don’t think it was out of any sign of disrespect, although I know that some people can interpret it that way. Knowing him, in the last few weeks, months, whatever, he wants to have fun.
“I had never seen this before, but I’m happy that he did it with a smile after a difficult phase in that game.”